Or maybe that was just me. After all, I’ve been around a bit myself.
I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t. I felt the same need, the same hunger, that drew everyone else to the Lady Faire. I fought it, drawing on the strength of my torc, and my armour, and my Drood training. To always be in control, and never the one controlled. I was half tempted to armour up, just so I could hide behind it. I thought of Molly, and all she had come to mean to me, and that helped. What was a living goddess in the face of the wild witch of the woods? There was no room left in my heart for the Lady Faire. But still, I couldn’t look away. I knew the Lady Faire was a honey trap, and a danger to everything I cared about . . . but I was finding it hard to care.
She was just like the legendary Ice Queen. You looked at her, a sliver of her ice entered your eye, and you were hers forever.
Except I was a Drood. A field agent trained to never give in to outside influences. Trained from an early age to be loyal only to Droods. Anything, for the family. I concentrated on my torc, and immediately a tendril of golden armour shot up my neck to form a mask under my security mask. And just like that, I could See the Lady Faire so much more clearly.
No one else could tell, but I could See her pumping out pheromones on an industrial scale. Musk, mating signals, bypassing the conscious mind to appeal directly to the unconscious, affecting people on the most basic, fundamental level. No wonder I’d been having so much trouble thinking clearly. I breathed deeply through my hidden golden mask, and felt my head clear as though a cold wind was rushing through it.
The Lady Faire still looked just as impressive, but also . . . beautiful and horrible. Human and inhuman. As though two sets of impressions were at war with each other. She was still strikingly attractive, but no longer seductive. The brute force of her chemical appeal made her seem more like an Insect Queen than an Ice Queen. I could See cracks in her perfect face, in her practised composure. Age had taken its toll, after all, and she was no longer the great creation she had been.
And just like that, I could remember everything Molly meant to me. I could see her face and hear her voice, and there was no one else in the world I wanted as much as I wanted her.
It was a shock to the soul, to step back from the precipice I’d been ready to leap over. To realise how close I’d come to jumping off that cliff edge along with all the other lemmings. Molly was back, like she’d never been away. I didn’t think I would ever mention this to her. How I’d felt, for those few delirious moments. I felt a certain sense of relief, now that I understood what had been happening to me. It wasn’t all down to the pheromones, to the chemical impulses, but they had definitely got to me. The Baron had put a lot of thought into his creation. The bastard.
The Lady Faire finally got bored just standing there, and strode regally forward into the Ballroom. Her ex-lovers were all still cheering and applauding, trying to outdo one another and catch the Lady Faire’s eye. She moved easily among her conquests, stopping here and there to favour this one and that, by remembering their name. And then she would remember a place or a time or a moment, and everyone hung on her every word and smile and gesture. Great men and women fawned over her openly, competed shamelessly for every glance, and debased themselves just for the chance of a smile. Sometimes she would lay a hand briefly on a shoulder, or caress a face with her fingertips, and the guests so favoured all but swooned.
But the Lady Faire never paused for long, always moving on, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind her. All over again.
No one made any move to touch the Lady Faire. Not, it seemed to me, because it was forbidden; they just didn’t dare. Even with the maddening pheromones hitting these people full blast, she still had complete control over them. I looked carefully around the milling crowd, and even at the farthest edges of the Ballroom, where logic suggested the pheromones wouldn’t even have reached yet, everyone still seemed perfectly dazzled and bewitched. Even so, a phalanx of uniformed security people followed close behind the Lady Faire, keeping an eye on things, clearly ready to slap down anyone who even looked like they were getting out of hand.
I was still thinking on how best to separate her out from her audience so I could grill her on the Lazarus Stone, when the Bride took advantage of the general chaos to come over and join me for a quiet word. While everyone else had all their attention fixed on our hostess. The Bride nodded easily to me, while Springheel Jack hung back a little, ready to see off anyone who looked like they were trying to listen in.
“So,” the Bride said quietly, “do I have the honour of addressing Shaman Bond, or Eddie Drood?”
“Neither,” I said just as quietly. “I’m currently passing as the Winter Palace’s Head of Security. Hence the uniform and mask. Try to look impressed.”
“I thought it must be something like that,” said the Bride. “You do have a tendency to show up at all the most interesting events, whoever you’re being. I didn’t think the Lady Faire was one of your past indiscretions . . .”
“I didn’t think she’d be one of yours,” I said. “Or is it Jack who’s taken a stroll up that very well-worn path?”
“I’ll never tell,” said the Bride. “Not that I have any time for the Lady Faire, you understand. I don’t think anyone outside her enchanted circle has, really. You don’t love the Lady Faire; that’s not what she’s for. Everyone here likes to refer to themselves as ex-lovers, but it’s really just another term for something far more basic. She and I are both creations of the Baron, but she thinks she’s so much more. So much better than the rest of the Spawn of Frankenstein. She never turns up at any of the reunions.”
“Then why are you here?” I said bluntly.
The Bride grinned. “She does throw the very best parties, darling. Wait till we play Twister later.” She leaned in close, to kiss me chastely on the forehead. “Thank you, for all you’ve done for the Frankenstein family. We do not forget our debts.”
She drifted away, accompanied by her faithful Springheel Jack, and they disappeared back into the crowd. I had to grin. Twister . . . a game that should only be played by adults, while drunk. Naked. Greased. And then my smile disappeared as I spotted someone in the crowd who shouldn’t have been there. There was just no way on this earth that the Lady Faire would have lowered herself to sleep with Jumping Jack Flashman. That renowned short-range teleporter, infamous thief, and well-known scumbag. Jumping Jack would have boasted to everyone in the world about it if he’d ever got that lucky.
No, he hadn’t been invited to the Ball. Odds were he was here for the same reason I was: to get his hands on the Lazarus Stone.
He wasn’t exactly in disguise, but he certainly wasn’t looking himself. He’d spent some serious money on some serious clothes, and had dyed his hair bright red. Presumably as a distraction. He was behaving himself for the moment, not picking anyone’s pocket or lifting their jewellery. But I still couldn’t have him here, running loose. Let the Lady Faire realise she had one uninvited guest, and she’d be bound to start looking for others. And once she knew there was a thief in the fold, who knew what kind of security measures she might place around the Lazarus Stone. No, I had to shut Jumping Jack Flashman down fast.
I went back on Tallman’s comm channel, and told his people to very quietly bring all the anti-teleport systems online and isolate the Ballroom. No one in or out until I said otherwise. A brief rush of voices through my earpiece assured me that this was being done. I sent out more instructions, to the security people inside the Ballroom, telling them who to look for. I only needed to mention Jumping Jack Flashman, and immediately men and women in white uniforms locked onto him and started closing in. No one wanted to take any chances with this particular slippery little devil.